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The construction industry knows how to talk about the tangible—build your team; get off the tools; scale.
What gets less airtime is the internal work running underneath all of it — the identity shifts, the competing forces, the particular experience of the femme founder building alongside and within a male-dominated industry.
The Holistic Home Service Podcast is that conversation.
Energetics and strategy and everything in between for the women leading home service businesses.
As we rise, everything built around us does too.
I'm Edi Odura and this is the Holistic Home Service Podcast.
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Welcome welcome welcome back.
I am excited about this episode.
This is a fun one, a less heady one if you will, but one that I think is very important.
So today we're going to talk about hiring international help.
Now this is definitely all the rage, something that is almost ubiquitous in business, the business world at this point.
And there are a lot of stories, good and bad, stereotypes, concerns, frustrations, celebrations around the idea of hiring overseas help.
Around the idea of offshoring, around the idea of getting an international virtual assistant, all these things.
So I'm going to dive into it today and talk more about it because this is my bread and butter.
We are a place, Gunion Virtual Professionals, with stateside founders.
And so we are navigating this interesting climate, and especially because at the time of this recording, which is early August 2026, the US is going batshit crazy around immigration, around rejecting global, playing nice on the global stage.
And so I think this is a very timely conversation.
So the heart of the work that I do always strives to be regenerative, meaning that every being involved in the process is left better off than when they started.
From the virtual professionals we place, to the founders we place them with, to me and my own team.
And we are actively working to expand this regenerative circle out to environmental concerns with the tools we use and how we engage in our business.
And that's a whole separate topic.
But that is the lens I'm coming from with this.
So this conversation is not going to just be pros and cons list, money versus time, energy, whatever.
We're also going to be talking about what is the lasting impact of how we approach this.
So here are some of the concerns, let's start there, that I have heard around hiring international help.
And some of the concerns I have felt myself.
A conflict with wanting to support people domestically, like should I really be sending this job overseas when there's people who need jobs here?
A sense of feeling exploitative, of paying an hourly rate that's nowhere near minimum wage here in the US, so our minimum wage, well, that's changed actually, our minimum wage is still $7.50 or something, which is crazy.
And yeah, actually, isn't it crazy that our minimum wage is like what people will be getting paid in a country where, like in Ghana, the dollar is 10 times stronger than the city, but anyways.
But functionally, our livable wage, we feel conflicted or exploitative paying somebody less just because they're overseas than we would pay them if they were here in the US.
And especially some of the, if you've ever been in the marketing bro kind of space, that's a big, oh, they love to talk about how they pay their VAs $5 an hour to essentially run their business, right?
If we're being honest, another concern may be accent and cultural differences.
We might be concerned about how our clients will perceive our brand if they'll trust this new person, if they will associate them having an accent and being completely remote with being scammers or anything like that.
And so there are some very real concerns and I'm sure there's even more, especially with your particular use case.
But the wonderful thing is that there are answers for all of this and there are ways to look at this from a different perspective.
Now this is not an exercise in, hey, we want to do this thing anyways, what ways can we find to make us feel good about it?
No.
These are, this is just a different perspective from the side of somebody, me, who has grown up going to Ghana, interacting with people who've been in Ghana all their lives, including my family and who now employs Ghanaian individuals.
So I want to say first to the whole point about concern about hiring overseas and being exploitative, et cetera, is that people got to work.
And virtual jobs, just like here in the US or if you're in the Western world, really like literally anywhere, virtual jobs are extremely desirable.
So people overseas don't have problems with companies wanting to hire them, right?
People don't have a problem with people offering job opportunities that are flexible, that pay higher than the local rate.
And that's something we need to keep in mind as well.
On the pay side, I do think there is an ethical problem with paying somebody $5 an hour if you're making multiples of that on their time, right?
Like if you are running a multimillion dollar company and you have somebody in your company making $5 an hour, that shit is crazy.
Don't do that.
I'm so sorry.
If you are doing that right now, don't do that.
Don't pay them because increasing their pay by $2, by even $5, will not significantly impact your margin.
At that point, you're just being exploitative, right?
Let's be honest.
There's really no reason to not pay somebody $10 an hour.
If you can't pay them $10 an hour, then you need to continue to use software to do the job that you need to get done and continue to do that work yourself or have it offloaded on your team.
This could be different in different situations.
If you're maybe in a nonprofit, there's an element of, you know, they're coming into this knowing that everybody's pay is low.
But if there's this giant gap from the least paid person to the most paid person, that's when it gets exploitative.
I might jump around a lot because I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I do want to say that, one, people love these remote jobs.
People are hungry for these remote jobs.
Don't feel bad about giving somebody an opportunity that could be literally life-changing to have the flexibility to not have to brave traffic and worry about transportation and to be able to work from the comfort of their home, making a livable or more than livable wage.
Talking about the wages, using the U.S. here as an example, I live in Indianapolis.
That's public knowledge.
I'm not doxing myself.
It is a city, so it's more expensive than rural Kansas, but if I look at the L.A. area, San Francisco, you know, here in Indy, you can get a one-bedroom apartment downtown for $1,300.
In L.A., San Francisco, getting a one-bedroom apartment for that amount, I'm sure is like you're paying $1,000, $2,000 more.
When companies hire and offer pay, they're going to look at that difference in cost of living and say, you know, there is this baseline of maybe pay $100,000 for this position.
It's competitive, it's great, but we recognize that you being in this other location, you need a little extra to help out, and I think it works conversely if there is such a drastic difference in cost of living.
So for example, we're going to use Ghana again, and I don't have the numbers front and center of the comparison, but fundamentally, the dollar is 10 times stronger than the city.
It fluctuates, sometimes it goes up to 11.
I think right now it's around 10.
I haven't actually looked in the last month or so.
And so, it doesn't mean everything in Ghana is 90% cheaper, absolutely not.
There's some things that are actually more expensive, but as you can imagine, $1 is going to get you much further than one city, and so that allows for paying a wage that is more than livable, more than local standards for college-educated professional person, and still it be accessible for you.
So I'm really just trying to hit home here that it is not wrong to pay people different amounts because of their location, and that is the competitive edge that individuals in Ghana have.
For example, it may be harder to compete on an international stage if that was not the case, right?
Imagine you have this administrative position, and you have somebody locally who could do this for $25 an hour, and you have somebody in Ghana who wants to do it, but they would also require $25 an hour.
What is the benefit to having somebody overseas?
There is more friction.
Like, let's be real, what you save in money is added in some other areas at times.
So there is a level of friction, a level of learning each other, a level of understanding cultural, slight cultural differences, and so just view the difference in pay as one piece of the competitive edge for people in the international job market, and they are perfectly fine to leverage that edge.
Doesn't mean people want to work for pennies, literally $5 an hour.
Doesn't mean that that's acceptable or ethical, but it does mean that $10, $15 an hour on a job that would otherwise have cost you $25 an hour is very viable.
So I spent a lot of time on that because I really want to diffuse that concern.
I know if you're listening to this, you care about people.
You care about treating people well, and that can feel really sticky.
Now onto the domestic piece, feeling, I don't know, for everybody the word will be different, but feeling, I hate like, quote unquote, un-American, I guess, unpatriotic, feeling like you're robbing somebody locally of a job by sending it overseas.
That is a more personal question to explore, and I will say that your view on the global economy and your local economy will color this conversation.
And I think a part of it as well is recognizing that hiring internationally is not just for the lower pay, but also the beauty that comes from different perspectives.
How much you can learn from them just as they can learn from you, knowing you're helping the collective, not just around you, but on a global scale.
And so there's no, I will never be one to say, oh, you have to hire overseas, or you're not elevated, or I don't know what the word would even be, or even, oh, you have to hire locally, you're not elevated.
I'll never get into binaries like that.
And I just want to assure you that there are so many beautiful things that come from hiring internationally, not just having somebody who has a lower overhead and maybe has expanded hours because they're ahead or whatever, so they can answer the phones longer, et cetera.
And so if those things are exciting and important to the cultural exchange, that new perspective, factor that into your internal dialogue and your conversation with stakeholders who are invested in this job, who are invested in filling this role, whether that be a partner or team lead, foreman, whoever that may be.
Don't just frame the conversation around money, but frame it around everything that will be gained.
Also recognizing that just because you hire one person internationally doesn't mean you're locked into that forever.
If it doesn't work out, you can find somebody locally, or if you find out you need somebody else, it could be somebody local, it could be somebody internationally, you're flexible.
And making the decision to hire internationally doesn't put you in a camp of something and that you can't ever leave.
All right, so we've already started going down the rabbit hole, but I want to specifically hone in on some ways to make hiring internationally as expansive as possible.
If you're like, okay, I think I might go this route, I need an operations person, I need a designer, I need a X, Y, Z, I'm going to client manager, right?
Let's talk about this.
So one of the first things that I would say is interview the agency that you work with, not just the individuals who'll be working for you.
Learn how much their contractors get paid from the amount that you pay.
Learn about benefits, treatment, read reviews from other business owners, but see if there's a way to find reviews from people who've worked with the agency.
Reddit is a great place for this.
You want to find a agency that treats their people well, that cares about where they place them and their wellbeing, right?
As with most things, companies that treat their people well, see better results, have better productivity, and in general, are the kind of businesses that you want to partner with.
So because I do this work, I will insert here and there how we do things, just so you know, but this is not me selling you on it.
But for us, we're not an agency, we're a placement service.
So we train people, we match them, we have 12 weeks of training with the company, and then we step out and the company works directly with the personnel.
So we don't charge an ongoing rate on top of their salary, if that makes sense, it's a one-time placement fee.
And as you could probably guess from all the conversations in this podcast, we are big on ethical treatment, dignified treatment, regenerative economics.
So making sure that our bottom line is not just padded and not even just your bottom line, but the virtual professionals, that they are getting the support they need, that they're getting the payment that they need, the compensation that they need.
So interview your agency.
Next way to really make this process expansive is to lean into this truth.
I love this.
Somebody said this and it stuck with me.
Clarity is kindness.
So bringing clear expectations to the table for someone is kindness, because then they know can I do this, can I not do this, and how to succeed in their role.
So come with an understanding of what you actually need help with, so that the person who comes on board knows what they're getting into.
I cannot tell you in my years of recruiting, HR work, when I will sit down with a company and they'll have a job description already, we got this, we just need you to manage the recruiting process.
Okay, sure.
So we get going and then as candidates come across and interviews are happening, it becomes very clear that either this role is way over-packed, I've never seen it when a role is under-packed.
It's not a full-time role, it's always over-packed, overstuffed, catch-all, or we don't even need this role, it actually needs to be three different roles, and we're just spinning our wheels looking for a unicorn.
So clarity is so important for the company and then for the person who'll be filling in this role.
This can be kind of hard for people, it's a skill to workforce plan, essentially, you're looking at capacity planning, you're looking at your goals, your strategy, where you want to go in the next five years, and saying, okay, who do we need on the bus with us to get there, and that's a bigger conversation than most people realize when getting into this.
Especially with hiring virtual assistants, people are like, oh, I just need an assistant, and they'll be the catch-all, they'll do this, they'll do that, they'll do this, and then you have somebody who can do a few of those things, but then you realize, oh, these other two or three things are actually more important than I thought and are slipping between the cracks because you didn't hire for that skill set, and now you're frustrated, your VA is frustrated, and you plod through, or you part ways, and you've spent that time onboarding, training, spinning your wheels, it can be really frustrating.
So clarity is kindness for you, for everybody involved.
This is something that I love to do, love, love, love.
It's like a puzzle, it's like a strategy game, and this is included in the work that we do.
That's why we are not a typical VA agency that just drops somebody in.
I love my founders, they're brilliant, and I know that when you're in a business, it's hard to see the moving pieces sometimes.
When you're just in it, in the trenches, it can feel like, oh, this is what I need, but when you take a step back and have a conversation, you realize, oh, I actually need this.
So interview the agency you work with, remember, clarity is kindness, and then frame your internal world for a healthy relationship.
So something I also encounter is people feeling like their virtual, their remote team member is kind of other.
They wouldn't say it, and they don't necessarily want it to be that way, but when they are not in the office, when they only interact through a screen, it can be really easy to feel like they are kind of separate.
But you want to really remember that they are part of your team.
Treat them as such.
Don't treat them like a hired hand, like a mercenary.
Invest in them.
Train them on company culture.
Move beyond viewing them as an appendage and just kind of like a cog, but as if they were literally in your office, as somebody who is invested and excited about your mission.
I will say as well that going back to interviewing your agency, and we mentioned often you'll interview your VA too before you guys commence work together.
You absolutely should talk to the person before you start working together.
Find somebody who can get excited about what you do.
They don't need to understand it all the way.
It doesn't need to be their undying, soul-calling passion, but you want them to have a level of interest because that shows up in the work.
Again, when we have virtual assistants, remote assistants, it can be easy to think of them as plug and play widgets that we can just, okay, pop this in, solve this problem for me, just manage these tasks and move on.
That kind of dynamic absolutely can work.
I think there is so much more fruitfulness when there is this integration of them in your company, when there is an intention on your part to find somebody who can integrate well in your company, and kind of transitioning perfectly into this last point around handling international hiring expansively, prep your people.
Bring your team members to a greater degree and your clients to a lesser degree along.
For team members, this looks like letting them know that you're looking to hire internationally.
Have a set meeting, prep them, let them know it's happening, and then have a meeting where they can bring questions or have a way for them to send questions to you and you answer them.
Come prepared to answer some of the same questions that you had probably initially when embarking on this journey.
Give them a chance to meet the person before they start.
Encourage open dialogue.
Encourage them to interact individually with that person.
Depending on the country that the person is coming from, they may not know very much.
I know when I talk to people, a lot of people know at least one Gunion person, whether them directly or one removed, but most people probably don't know about Gunion culture.
Take the time to ask the newest team member to come up with a few items to share, a few pieces of information, and pass it along to the team.
Draw commonalities, build that bridge, and also show the unique cool things and the unique perspective that they'll bring and assure them that we're committed to the same vision and mission and forward motion that you've always been committed to.
Once you've brought this newest member onto your team, I highly recommend sending an email out to your clients before they interact with the person.
Introduce who they are, show their face, because depending on the role that they're carrying and the way that you communicate with clients, they may never really see their face.
It may just be over the phone, it may be through email, so let them learn a little bit more about them and frame the conversation with excitement for how this newest team member is going to elevate the client's experience.
So excited to have them.
We're going to be able to respond to you even faster.
We're going to be able to extend our hours.
You'll be able to get project updates, more communication, X, Y, Z. And then fully own the fact that they're overseas and share a bit about their culture similar to how you will share with your team members.
If you frame this with excitement, when you acknowledge that they're overseas and it's not like this dirty little secret, but an exciting, cool, fun aspect of your team, people can latch on to that excitement and that understanding and recognize that and feel that you've done your due diligence.
You're bringing on a new team member who just happens to be in a different country.
Not okay, she just needed cheap labor and here's this person, right?
So as a recap, how to hire expansively.
So many tips we could give, right?
But interview the agency you work with, lean into the idea of clarity as kindness, frame your internal world for flourishing, and prep your people.
So I absolutely love having a team, like, oh my God, sometimes I think I just am in business so I can have a team and employ people and give them dream jobs, paid well, flexible.
At my biggest, I had an operations coordinator and social media manager.
Currently, I have my certification coordinator, shout out to Kellian, who is awesome.
She was previously the operations coordinator and moved into this role.
She manages the relationships and vetting of all the virtual administrators we place.
She is amazing.
She is on birthday vacay this week, taking the week off, like, I love it.
I am so excited to continue to expand and I'm like, I'm going to revisit this podcast.
Sometimes I make these podcasts for myself.
I'm like, I need an audio archive of this so I can circle back, circle the block, spin the block.
But I would love to hear more about your hiring escapades and adventures and questions.
As always, information to connect with me, with us, with the team is below in the show notes.
But I hope this podcast episode has been helpful for you in this world that is increasingly divided in the US especially, that's seeking to become increasingly insular.
I fully firmly believe that working across borders is a powerful, powerful way to continue healing the world.
So when you hire internationally, I really believe you are hiring internationally well.
And with respect for each other's cultures and perspectives, I truly believe that we are just chipping away at the divisiveness, the anger, the fear, the tribalism that we're experiencing.
So, thank you for spending your day with me today.
Until next time.